HD DVD by Toshiba

[neveronfriday]

These past weeks news items have been popping up right and left saying that Toshiba's HD DVD will be the successor to the current DVD disc. As far as I can tell, the movie industry (at least four bigger representatives, Warner Bros. Studios, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures and New Line Cinema) has agreed to push this new disc as soon as possible (last quarter of 2005).

Because we have so many knowledgable people on this board, is there anyone who has kept up-to-date with this development? How imminent is this change to a new format really? Is Sony's Blu-ray disc really out of the race? And how compatible, if at all, are these new formats?

Without doing too much reading, I guess it's safe to say that both new formats offer better copy-protection (at least it wouldn't surprise me).

So, any input from the technology-savy people on this board??

Edited December 8, 2004 by deus62

[Tom in RI]

There is an article in today's Wall Street Journal announcing that Toshiba is ready to market double sided dvd's with the new and old format to provide backwards compatibility, sorry I can't link to it. I think the jury is still out. From what I've read, the other competing dvd format has a much larger capacity. I guess one will be the Betamax of the new millenium.

[sal]

I've been hearing that Blu-Ray has better hopes of emerging the winner. More technology companies are backing it. Also, Sony is planning on using this technology in Playstation 3.

[sal]

DVD developers set for format war

Sunday, November 14, 2004 Posted: 6:29 PM EST (2329 GMT)

(CNN) -- The electronics and entertainment industries are shaping up for the biggest format battle since the "video wars" between VHS and Betamax to decide the future of DVD.

Two rival "next generation" DVD formats look set to be launched onto the marketplace next year.

Both are backed by powerful and well-known Japanese manufacturers, with each staking their claim to an industry worth billions of dollars.

And with the DVD market unlikely to support parallel formats, the loser faces the prospect of squandering millions spent on research, development and marketing costs.

Both "Blu-ray", principally backed by Sony, and "HD DVD", which has been developed by Toshiba, are based on the same basic technology.

Both replace the red lasers found in current DVD machines with blue lasers, utilizing their shorter wavelength to store data at the higher densities needed to record high-definition movies and television.

But with both parties determined to prove the superiority of their product, a protracted dispute could be damaging to the industry as a whole, increasing production costs for DVD manufacturers and making buyers nervous about investing in a format that could quickly become obsolete.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chaprek recently told the DVD Forum, an industry association of 220 electronics and media companies, that launching two formats simultaneously risked "potentially crippling the next generation format" and "utterly confusing or aggravating the customer."

With Blu-ray recorders already on sale in Japan, Toshiba looks set to enter the fray with HD DVD models early in 2005.

But the real battle looks set for next Christmas, when both major players plan to have DVD players in the shops.

By that point the entertainment industry, and particularly Hollywood, will likely have chosen sides; and history suggests that the format with the greater selection of movies will prevail.

Sony has been stung before by that scenario, having seen its groundbreaking Betamax format starved out of the video market by the wider selection of titles made available in VHS format.

This time, however, Sony seems to have learnt its lesson. Not only does it now have VHS pioneers Matsushita, better known for its Panasonic brand, on side but its success with the Playstation games console provides a template for a successful marketing campaign.

Despite its limited previous experience in the gaming industry, Sony was able to corner the market despite competition from Sega and Nintendo because of the depth and quality of its games range.

Sony is already maneuvering for the fight. In September it announced that it was adopting Blu-ray as the format for Playstation 3, currently scheduled for release in 2006.

And with Sony Pictures already in the Blu-ray camp, a Sony-led consortium also recently acquired MGM, along with their back catalogue.

Furthermore, Blu-ray has the backing of Hewlett Packard and Dell, which together control around 30 percent of the global PC market.

"In terms of technology, we have no weak points. Our format is superior on all counts," Sony executive officer Kiyoshi Nishitani said recently.

Toshiba however has not been cowered by Sony's efforts, retaliating to Sony's Playstation-Blu-ray collaboration by announcing that it would introduce notebook computers with HD DVD in the last quarter of 2005.

HD DVD is also backed by rival manufacturers Sanyo and NEC while last year it was also approved by the influential DVD Forum, which has said it will finally endorse just one format.

Toshiba also claims the support of Time Warner, in which it owns a small stake and with which it worked closely to establish the current DVD standard in the mid-1990s.

It has also had senior engineer Hisashi Yamada commuting between Japan and the U.S. in an effort to court the support of undecided studios such as Paramount, Disney and Universal.

"If Sony is so sure it is winning the battle, it wouldn't have felt the need to buy MGM," says Yamada.

Toshiba claims HD DVD's biggest advantage is the format's low transitional costs. Because the discs are physically the same as existing DVDs many of the existing components used by DVD manufacturers will still function.

But the monumental task faced by Toshiba and its allies was summed up by the gadgets weblog Gizmodo, which declared in a recent feature that "Blu-ray has already won."

"Blu-ray is not only technically superior to HD DVD, it has a far stronger corporate backing, and has demonstrated the ability to have more content available to push the format," said Gizmodo.

While a dual layer HD DVD can hold 30GB, a dual layer Blu-ray disc already has a 50GB capacity, and Sony claim the format could eventually hold as much as 200GB on an eight-layered disc.

Sony is also working hard to bring costs down, announcing earlier this year that it had developed paper Blu-ray discs.

"I don't think Toshiba will back down," says analyst Carlos Dimas. "Sony is unlikely to give up either. Inevitably there is going to be some confusion in the market and there's going to be another standard war.

"In the initial phase the consumer will probably lose. It is a big risk for people who actually buy products for either format without knowing who the winner is."

But, in case you've only recently made the switch from video to DVD and are already sweating over the cost of replacing all your favorite films, don't worry. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD will still play your old DVDs.

[mgraham333]

One of the best places to keep up with this on going battle (and all things DVD) is The Digital Bits.

Here is a recent messge:

There are going to be plenty of people in the coming days and weeks who will bemoan the fact that these studios are choosing HD-DVD over Blu-ray Disc, because they assume Blu-ray Disc is the better format. Look... on paper, the Blu-ray Disc specs look more impressive. But I've seen technical demonstrations of film footage in both Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, and it all looks fantastic. The fact is, we can't really judge which format is better until we start seeing FINAL product in both formats. I'm not talking about test discs that have 30 minutes of barely compressed video - I mean the actual product consumers are going to get when they go their favorite video stores next Christmas, complete with extras, audio options etc. The fact is, we just don't know which format is going to look and sound better, and I fully expect BOTH to look and sound amazing. It's just too early to start forming a sound, informed opinion on the quality issue.

Let me tell you why today's announcement IS a good thing. It helps clear up consumer confusion. Here we are, nearly a full year away from HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc product rollout here in the States, and already we know where roughly 70% of the Hollywood studios are going to line up. In terms of the majors, we're only waiting on 20th Century Fox, Buena Vista and DreamWorks. The minors (Lions Gate, Image, Anchor Bay, etc) will likely go where the majority goes, and some (like Image) might even dabble in both formats. That means if you're a consumer who's interested in getting into high-definition movies on disc, all you'll have to ask yourself is which studios own most of your favorite films (you can go to sites like IMDB.com to figure that out). Based on that knowledge, you can make a reasonably informed decision as to which format to buy. Frankly, I expect that the studios that have yet to commit either way will make their format choices known by the spring of next year (certainly by summer).

I also believe that firm, early commitments by all of the major studios one way or another will put a great deal of incentive (and pressure) on the various hardware manufacturers to start planning and marketing combination decks that will play BOTH Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD (much like several of them now produce combo decks that play both the SACD and DVD-Audio high-resolution audio formats). Once that happens, the question of which format will dominate will effectively be moot, at least in terms of prepackaged, high-definition movie software on disc.

All of this is a far cry from the first couple of years of the current DVD format, when only a handful of the major studios had committed to DVD, and consumers had long waits to find out what the rest Hollywood was going to do. That uncertainty meant that many consumers waited until DVD was 3 or 4 years old before ditching their VCRs and finally making the digital transition (and most consumers waited even longer than that).

If all of the major Hollywood studios commit fully to one format or the other by mid-2005, that means the decision for consumers (as to whether or not to upgrade to high-def) is going to be pretty simple. It also means that there's going to be lots of great movie titles available for launch. And it means prepackaged, high-def movies on disc actually have a fighting chance of finding at least some consumer interest right away. That can only be a good thing for this industry... and for all of you as movie fans.

Stay tuned...

source: My Two Cents Column, The Digital Bits

[mgraham333]

Disney backs Blu-Ray.

CNN story

MSNBC version

At this point I'm so pissed that the industry can't come together and back one standard that I hope they all crash and burn! F*ck 'em. Consumer confusion means death, don't they get that?????

[sal]

At this point I'm so pissed that the industry can't come together and back one standard that I hope they all crash and burn! F*ck 'em. Consumer confusion means death, don't they get that?????

To be honest, I don't even care if they both crash and burn. Less money for us to shell out!